Electronic Passport to Prehistory

HOME

	E-mail Home Download Test
Mr. Dowling's Electronic Passport Prehistory

A Long Time Ago

     History began when humans learned to read and write. The first writing we know of came from civilizations in Mesopotamia and Egypt about 5500 years ago. People lived for thousands of years before this, but little changed from generation to generation. People lived as nomads. Nomads are people who have no permanent home. Men hunted animals and women gathered wild plants. When there were no more animals to hunt or plants to gather, they moved to a new place.

     Society developed when people began to do individual jobs. This is called the "division of labor." When people do only one job, they usually choose a job they enjoy and do well. Further, when you do the same job over and over, you learn to do it very well. The division of labor caused people to depend on one another and eventually led to advanced civilizations.

     Eventually, people learned how to write. Writing allowed people to pass their knowledge onto others. Sir Isaac Newton once said, "If I have seen further than others, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants." What Sir Isaac meant was that his accomplishments were possible because he learned from the people who came before him. Instant worldwide communication is one reason why our society is rapidly changing as we reach the new millenium.

     In the last two hundred years, scientists have concluded that humans have only lived on the earth for a short period of the earth's history. They believe the earth is about 4.6 billion years old. This estimate is based on radiometric age-dating. Certain elements emit energy; this is called radioactivity. Over time, the elements causing radioactivity decay. If an object has a half-life of one million years, half of the element causing radioactivity will decay over a period of one million years. Radiometric age-dating is not precise, but it does provide us with a vague estimate of the age of the earth.

Some cool links

Jordan is one of my students. He wrote "The Twelve Days of Archaeology" and he really wants people to click on his page to learn his song.a
Discover ancient Greece and Rome with The Perseus Project.
Do you want to someday be an archaeologist? The Illinois State Museum tells you what you need to know.
Visit the Petrified Forest in northern Arizona.
Follow the story of Bob T. Hominid. It starts slow but picks up fast. This link offers a funny view of early civilization.

To cite this page:
Dowling, Mike., "The Electronic Passport to Prehistory," available from http://mrdowling.com/602prehistory.html; Internet; updated Tuesday, April 30, 2002 .